The Guild Wars 2 Facebook Page announces ArenaNet is temporarily curtailing their own sales of Guild Wars 2 to prevent the success of their MMORPG sequel from overwhelming the system (thanks nin), though the game is still being sold by everyone else. Word is: "Effective immediately we have disabled sales via buy.guildwars2.com. To be clear, box and digital sales are still available via our retail partners. We are tracking our concurrency closely while expanding our infrastructure. We’ll re-enable first-party digital sales as soon as we feel that we can do so safely." Also, Guildwars2 reddit has word on an exploit in the game (thanks Eurogamer), saying this has resulted in permanent bans, though they are offering amnesty for those who request it:

We also believe and respect that people make mistakes. This is in fact the first example of a widespread exploit in the game. With this in mind, we are offering the members of our community who exploited the game a second chance to repair the damage that has been done.

Thus, just this once, we will offer to convert permanent bans to 72-hour suspensions. Should those involved want to accept this offer of reinstatement, contact us on our support website--support.guildwars2.com—and submit a ticket through the "Ask a Question" tab. Please use the subject heading of "Karma Weapons Exploit Appeal", then confirm in the body of your ticket that you will delete any items/currency that you gained from the exploit. You should submit only one ticket. Once you have done so, we will lower your ban to 72 hours, and following your re-activation we will check your account to make sure that you have honored your commitment. If that commitment is not honored, we will re-terminate the account.

This is a first and final warning. Moving forward, please make sure you that when you see an exploitable part of the game, you report it and do not attempt to benefit from it.

Creston wrote on Aug 31, 2012, 10:53:Okay, I played to level 4 last night, and I am rather overwhelmed. The tutorial was, to be honest, an absolute joke. I rolled a Charr, so I had to go into a dungeon and kill some dude. By the time I made it down into the dungeon where this dude was, a group of about 10 other Charr had already ganked the dude down to a sliver of health, and he died before I actually even got to see him. I never got XP or anything (since I didn't do anything, didn't have time to), but the quest still counted as complete.

Err click on the help button dude, it has basic information about the games various systems if you don't want to experiment. You get skills by just equipping a weapon, that's it. As you unlock more skills, the user interface will give you a small overlay tip pointing it out. Don't worry about confusion, everyone is confused at first as you are essentially relearning a lot of MMO crap again

1-5 are set skills based on the weapons you have equipped and the class you're playing. You get weapon swapping at level 7. 6-0 are utility skills that you choose based on your class and race, you unlock them with skill points that you get from leveling up or by just doing cool things in the game world that reward them. Don't worry about spending them, your exp bar at 80 gives you a fresh one for each "level" after that so you will never really run out or need to respec those. At level 10 you unlock traits which are almost like talents in WoW that let you customize your character even further. Trophies are used in crafting and if you go craft it is explained. Again though, crafting is complex and you will need to do more than just pick from 5 things on a static list, there is a discovery component that is pretty important.

Don't expect an interactive WoW style tutorial or something, for better or worse there are very few of those in this game. Guild Wars 2 does not hold your hand through every small task in the game, you have to play around and figure some of this stuff out. It promotes a thinking play style that you will need to survive the combat later on, particularly in dungeons and PvP.

cheaters

Cheaters should get what they deserve (perm ban!), if anything they are getting off easy here. I was all for Blizzard banning bots and scripters in Diablo 3 and I'm happy ArenaNet is taking a similarly tough stance. There was no grey area, they knew what they were doing, one guy had over 100 gold in 2 hours.